As part of my Msc in AI I need to write a game and so far I've come up with Beetles.

My problem is that I got so involved in the technical side I forgot a plot There's two teams of beetles, red and yellow, (maybe other creatures too) and they need to interact somehow - I had a vague idea about each team having to collect a certain number of gems to win a level, but now I'm not so sure...

Can any of you guys suggest a fun game for these beetles to play against eachother?

Currently the beetles can't see eachother at all, they just nibble beans or wander about, but there will be combat - I just haven't implemented it until I've got a better idea what I'm doing! The status bars don't mean anything yet either.

I just get "Several Java Virtual machines running in the same process called an error". It pops up twice, then renders me with a blank screen. I tried to close all other Java processes I had running, but it didn't do anything to change the message.

I just get "Several Java Virtual machines running in the same process called an error". It pops up twice, then renders me with a blank screen. I tried to close all other Java processes I had running, but it didn't do anything to change the message.Are you testing this on a dual-core btw?

After all that vague global-warming stuff made humankind (and most mammals for that matter) go extinct, a few cave-trapped beetles roamed the planet for a few. It didn't take long before good old Mother Nature showed her ugly face and the remaining spicies began to compete again to gain control over the cave.

You, my precious (last?) human, were just heading back from your trip to the Magellan Nebula, only to see your planet's ecosystem decimated.

Your task is to sit back and relax, killing the offspring looking least like yourself, pushing for humans to evolve.

Go go go!

Hi, appreciate more people! Σ ♥ = ¾Learn how to award medals... and work your way up the social rankings!

Can any of you guys suggest a fun game for these beetles to play against eachother?

It reminds me rather of Pikmin (and especially the two-player mode in Pikmin 2) so how about a foraging, real-time strategy game like that?

Let's say the beetles wander around looking for (randomly appearing) food items and carrying any they find back to their (red or yellow) nest. When N food items are brought back to the nest, a new beetle is born. The red and yellow beetles are generally non-aggressive towards each other, except perhaps for occasionally mugging an enemy beetle for its food item.

The player (a disembodied camera) explores the play area and helps out their team by:

clicking on food items to summon one of their beetles to collect it;

clicking on enemy beetles to stun them for a second;

clicking on friendly beetles to power them up for a short time during which they move faster, fight better, and (this is the good bit) try to kill any nearby enemy beetles

The game ends when all of the beetles on one of the teams are dead. Since the player is helping out one of the teams, the other team could start with more beetles to compensate.

As for a story, erm... the yellow beetles are evil and must be destroyed?

Soo apparently the game seems to work now. Though unfortunately I don't have time to run and test atm, so will do comments later on. But the multiple JVM error seems to have dispersed. I did just update to Firefox 3 though so I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it? (doubt it but dunno?)

The beetles have to gather (randomly dropped or strategically placed) items like beans, gems, &c and bring them back to their home. Here they can mix these 'ingredients' together to make new beetles, new kinds of creatures and spells (spells give abilities such as 'stun' or 'haste'). The winning team is the one that gathers the 3 ingredients needed to make an exit portal.Anyone think of any improvements?

The latest version lets you pick things up (spacebar to drop them) but no actual mixing yet...

From a technical point of view, this game is really cool, I like it. And thanks for adding in the wireframe view etc, that's really interesting. As for gameplay, I think you need to make it a shooting game - they always just work well in 3D, but nothing much else does.

Maybe the beetles can shoot poison stingers or something? And the spiders can shoot webs?

Another update: Now you can shoot at beetles to flip them over (and make them drop things).By rapid clicking you can hit them several times (my current record is 5!)And yes, I know the missiles go through walls sometimes!

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